Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcomed up Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says, what is
Speaker 1: this thing that builds our dreams yet slips away from us?
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strictlin, I'm Lauren Bocaban, and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: Today is going to be part two of a two
Speaker 1: part series we're doing on anti aging technologies, the reversal
Speaker 1: of aging. Can you forestall death for some number of years?
Speaker 1: Can you make your tissues seem younger again? In the
Speaker 1: last episode, we looked at some technologies and recent advances
Speaker 1: and ideas about how long it would be before it
Speaker 1: was possible for us to to become younger again, to
Speaker 1: achieve true rejuvenation through science and technology. But today we
Speaker 1: want to look at some of the philosophy, you might say,
Speaker 1: or the ethics surround funding these claims, or the science
Speaker 1: in some cases. Yeah, we're looking at how there are
Speaker 1: some very strong voices on different sides of this issue
Speaker 1: and what they are arguing and what they are claiming
Speaker 1: the other side represents um or sides, I should say,
Speaker 1: because it's not like it's just two. It's kind of
Speaker 1: simpler to think of them as too. And in large
Speaker 1: part we're going to be focusing on Aubrey Degray's philosophy
Speaker 1: versus people who think that that philosophy is uh, let's
Speaker 1: say junk. There are many other words that we could
Speaker 1: use that some people would believe are are relevant. And
Speaker 1: it's really an interesting way of looking at how the
Speaker 1: scientific community handles this sort of stuff, and where you
Speaker 1: fall on this issue may depend heavily on your own
Speaker 1: personal point of view as well as just your confidence
Speaker 1: in the scientific knowledge and ability of whichever camp you
Speaker 1: you find yourself. You know, more in support of right,
Speaker 1: because it's not just the science community that is talking
Speaker 1: about this kind of thing. I mean, I mean we
Speaker 1: all talk about aging, we all think about it, we
Speaker 1: all purchase products related to it, or at least many
Speaker 1: many of us do. Or I mean at least many
Speaker 1: of us drink water and eat vegetables that that sometimes
Speaker 1: counts a little bit of water. You do, yeah, and
Speaker 1: every every month it's nothing but coffee For Jonathan, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't buy the water. Why you just get it
Speaker 1: from natural water sources? What? What do you have? Rain? Barrels,
Speaker 1: of course I do. Is that legal? Here? Am I
Speaker 1: getting you in trouble? Alright? So sorry? Sorry? Yeah, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a very impassionate subject, is what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to say, right, And and it's one that gets
Speaker 1: a lot of coverage to right, it's oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: for I mean, who would have thought that people want
Speaker 1: to read about ways that they could live longer or
Speaker 1: be healthier for longer spans of their life. For some reason,
Speaker 1: people seem to feel like they have a vested interest
Speaker 1: in this j Yeah. So it's not just a conversation
Speaker 1: among scientists, are among the general lay population, but also
Speaker 1: among the science communication media. Yeah, and I think that's
Speaker 1: the source of some of these problems. I mean, one
Speaker 1: problem with this topic is that it inherently has the
Speaker 1: features and by this topic, I mean research into anti
Speaker 1: aging technologies. It inherently has the features of a research
Speaker 1: program that lends itself to first sensational reporting and second
Speaker 1: something I would call skeptics fatigue. Where there are some
Speaker 1: other topics like this, For example, how about an easy,
Speaker 1: side effect free solution to weight loss, Whether this is
Speaker 1: a drug or technique, A certain new diet, new food,
Speaker 1: whatever would I would also argue that a very similar
Speaker 1: approach that doesn't have anything to do with health would
Speaker 1: be any of new energy or propulsion system. We've seen
Speaker 1: these reported multiple times, and there is I often see
Speaker 1: that same kind of response to those as well. Well.
Speaker 1: I'd say that that's pretty different though, because a lot
Speaker 1: of those things claim to violate the known laws of physics.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about perpetual motions some of these articles
Speaker 1: proposed to Okay, well, no, I mean what I'd say though,
Speaker 1: is that I'd argue, at least there's absolutely nothing in
Speaker 1: principle that makes either of these projects either easy side
Speaker 1: effect free weight loss, or reversal of aging impossible to
Speaker 1: accomplish in principle. I mean, they're they're health engineering issues.
Speaker 1: Can you engineer a drug that does this? It's entirely possible.
Speaker 1: There's a drug that makes you healthy, successful, dieting easy
Speaker 1: that I mean that that could exist. I want this drug.
Speaker 1: Where are you keeping these drugs? I'll take your money
Speaker 1: in a minute. But and then also, a particular therapy
Speaker 1: could make your body effectively twenty years younger without causing cancer.
Speaker 1: There's no reason I can see why this wouldn't be
Speaker 1: a thing that could happen. But because these projects are
Speaker 1: hoping to provide satisfaction of deep desires people have, like
Speaker 1: you know, be thin, befit, be healthy, live longer, be
Speaker 1: more attractive, live forever. Uh, these are these are desires
Speaker 1: that are held widely by people who aren't very involved
Speaker 1: with science and don't read about science a whole lot.
Speaker 1: They these topics tend to reward sensational journalism and over
Speaker 1: hyping of the meaningfulness of new studies. You ever notice
Speaker 1: how like every few months there's a new study that
Speaker 1: could mean the end of aging or could be the
Speaker 1: new solutioned easy weight loss. And you know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: help that we live in the age of clickbait, where
Speaker 1: headlines are specifically engineered to try and get people to
Speaker 1: click on them and may or may not be an
Speaker 1: accurate representation of the actual information that is included after
Speaker 1: you click. Yeah, but beyond that, they're also bad people, right,
Speaker 1: there are bad people out there who want to prey
Speaker 1: on these deep desires exactly. I mean, if you are
Speaker 1: a person with no scruples, then you could easily identify
Speaker 1: a target audience that has a very vulnerable point to
Speaker 1: aim at and use that as your means of leveraging
Speaker 1: that person so that you can make buckoo's of money
Speaker 1: and happens all the time. That's one of the ways
Speaker 1: that you wind up getting things like twelve day juice
Speaker 1: detoxes being appetised. Yeah wait, those don't actually make you
Speaker 1: live to nine hundred, not that I'm personally aware of,
Speaker 1: but the math, they sure do move a lot of juice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you've probably seen this stuff in banner ads.
Speaker 1: One one easy trick to stay skinny forever. One simple
Speaker 1: technique to become twenty years younger. You tune into basic
Speaker 1: cable either like before six am, you're gonna see these.
Speaker 1: Yeah this this mom created a miracle cure. Dentists hate her.
Speaker 1: So these phony ads, these phony predatory ads, plus just
Speaker 1: maybe well meaning but just not very good. Over hyped
Speaker 1: media representation of of research in these areas I think
Speaker 1: leads many skeptical people to be inherently reserved about these subjects,
Speaker 1: maybe more than they would be if they weren't reacting
Speaker 1: to this kind of coverage all the time, if you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like I often since in the
Speaker 1: tone of their reactions that many skeptical science writers feel
Speaker 1: compelled to downplay the importance of research in areas like
Speaker 1: aging reversal, or even the merits of the whole project
Speaker 1: of research itself. You know, and I can understand the
Speaker 1: reason for this, but also I think if a therapy
Speaker 1: does appear to show promise for reducing symptoms of aging,
Speaker 1: that's worth responsibly spreading information about. Oh sure, well, and
Speaker 1: I and I do want to put in like I
Speaker 1: feel like we're being a little bit harsh on on
Speaker 1: both the research end and also on the media. And
Speaker 1: and I don't think that majority of people are trying
Speaker 1: to trick you. I think that a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are creating these types of therapies genuinely believe, perhaps
Speaker 1: through misunderstanding of science, that what they're doing is is
Speaker 1: good and can help people. And I genuinely believe that
Speaker 1: most media. I mean, I know that I've written headlines
Speaker 1: where like afterwards someone kind of called me on it.
Speaker 1: They were like, that's click baity, and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh it is, um, oh well, I mean exactly what
Speaker 1: I was just about to say was I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the times the research is fine, even the
Speaker 1: whole article itself is fine. But an editor put a
Speaker 1: headline on it that's like, what, Well, there's there's also
Speaker 1: the issue of press releases that are written by someone
Speaker 1: who's in pr who doesn't necessarily have an actual understanding
Speaker 1: the science behind it, who might be misrepresenting a scientist's work,
Speaker 1: and the scientist would never exactly and yet the press
Speaker 1: releases what the media picks up. Uh, and the media
Speaker 1: may or may not rework that us released to any extent,
Speaker 1: which could potentially make it even more cloudy than what
Speaker 1: it was before. And you get to this level where
Speaker 1: what is being communicated to the public may not reflect reality, again,
Speaker 1: not through any kind of malicious intent to misinformed, but
Speaker 1: rather through just a human failing, which happens. So so
Speaker 1: I think I think along these lines. We kind of
Speaker 1: touched on this in the last episode, but I think Joe,
Speaker 1: you had a proposal for us. Oh yeah, the easy,
Speaker 1: if you will, The easiest way to to bring down
Speaker 1: the temperature of these whole conversations is to never again
Speaker 1: use the phrase fountain of youth for anything related to science. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's all now just spiggot of infancy of health, speak
Speaker 1: of health with a teenage waste land. Okay, visiting the
Speaker 1: teenage wasteland, so slightly more confusing message. But I understand,
Speaker 1: well we should we should transition to talking about that.
Speaker 1: There is definitely a camp of thinker is out there
Speaker 1: who are not fond of anti aging research for various reasons.
Speaker 1: They might think that, uh, this is not actually a
Speaker 1: fruitful avenue of research, or they might have philosophical or
Speaker 1: ethical objections to the project. And this this was something
Speaker 1: that if we had been doing this podcast fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: this conversation would probably focus almost entirely on on the
Speaker 1: burgeoning field of stem cell research, because back then, uh,
Speaker 1: it was very It's still in some ways it was
Speaker 1: a very controversial subject. It's less so now because we
Speaker 1: found other means of accessing stem cells. Also, there's a
Speaker 1: greater understanding of how stem cell harvesting happens in the
Speaker 1: first place, where that's not as big an issue as
Speaker 1: it once was. However, there's still other things that that
Speaker 1: come into play when people start objecting to this sort
Speaker 1: of research. And sometimes it's not even that are they're
Speaker 1: objecting to the research, that objecting to the way it's
Speaker 1: being framed in such a way that it seems like
Speaker 1: the research is uh is trying to justify claims that
Speaker 1: have already been made, as opposed to research to find
Speaker 1: out if a hypothesis is true. It's more like this
Speaker 1: is research to we're gonna cherry pick all the data
Speaker 1: that seems to support this this premise that we have
Speaker 1: set forward. So part of the issue here, and we
Speaker 1: talked about this in our last episode, it's it's a big,
Speaker 1: big problem is that we don't have an agreement on
Speaker 1: what actually causes the process of aging, or that there
Speaker 1: is something so simple as to say this is what
Speaker 1: causes aging, and maybe multiple factors that are all kind
Speaker 1: of happening at generally the same time in our life.
Speaker 1: And so since we don't have that agreement, we don't
Speaker 1: have this scientific understanding of that. It makes it very
Speaker 1: difficult to have a meaningful conversation if you're coming at
Speaker 1: this from two different points, because it may be that
Speaker 1: one camp is really focused on one aspect of a
Speaker 1: jing and another campus focused on another aspect of aging.
Speaker 1: Perhaps they're both right individually, but that the overall picture
Speaker 1: is larger and and and incorporates both of them. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The more that I've been researching this topic over the
Speaker 1: past week, or so, I honestly think that none of
Speaker 1: the party lines that I've heard about aging could possibly
Speaker 1: be totally right or totally wrong. Um, it's just so
Speaker 1: ludicrously complicated, and there's so many, so many factors. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So here here's some examples we've got, and we talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about this in our last episode two.
Speaker 1: You have the genetic hypothesis of aging, which talks about
Speaker 1: the genetic code that gives ourselves instructions on how to
Speaker 1: behave and what to do. Uh. And and that includes
Speaker 1: the instructions that could lead to an organism's death by
Speaker 1: by just extreme age. That could be That's where the
Speaker 1: secret is. You have to get that in the genetic code.
Speaker 1: You have to identify that and rewrite it. Uh. So
Speaker 1: we know that cellular death apoptosis, that that has something
Speaker 1: to do with the genetic code, that the biological clock
Speaker 1: is a thing. With cellular death, it is less clear
Speaker 1: leading to a poptosis, Yes, exactly, senescence being the the
Speaker 1: the halt of cellular division and then followed by apoptosis,
Speaker 1: which is cellular death. Uh, that's clear. It's less clear
Speaker 1: on an organism scale. If you know what what factor
Speaker 1: genetics plays, but it's an important little point to make.
Speaker 1: And then over on the pro anti aging side, so
Speaker 1: we have the anti anti aging and the pro anti aging.
Speaker 1: You have people like Aubrey de Gray who argues that
Speaker 1: aging is really the result of accumulated cellular damage. So
Speaker 1: he's really looking at a kind of Some would argue, uh,
Speaker 1: a step beyond whatever the root cause of aging is,
Speaker 1: this is the the effect of it that then causes
Speaker 1: other problem health problems. I don't know if he's updated
Speaker 1: his his ideas since then, but I remember the last
Speaker 1: time I researched degree, he had seven points right. He
Speaker 1: said that there are essentially seven things that happened that
Speaker 1: cause aging, and if you can fix these seven problems,
Speaker 1: you have stopped aging. Right, And and genetic therapies might
Speaker 1: play a part in treating the causes of aging in
Speaker 1: this sort of view, but it's not necessarily thought of
Speaker 1: as the ultimate stop. It may be that you find
Speaker 1: a treatment that stops the damage the cellular damage, or
Speaker 1: removes the cellular damage, or repairs the cellular damage, and
Speaker 1: that in itself becomes the anti aging treatment. So in
Speaker 1: other words, you might even have a treatment that doesn't
Speaker 1: address the root cause it just addresses the symptom at
Speaker 1: a speed that is sufficient to keep you from going
Speaker 1: down that particular route of aging, uh, which would be
Speaker 1: the spigot of health approach, I assume health. Now, those
Speaker 1: are not the only two hypotheses that attempted to explain
Speaker 1: the aging process. There are lots of them, but those
Speaker 1: are two big ones, and that's a big part of
Speaker 1: the where the problem lies. Right, What what about the
Speaker 1: hypothesis that it's just that you've been left out in
Speaker 1: the sun too long? Yeah? Oh oh no, I saw
Speaker 1: the opportunity and I took it. But anyway, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is where you get these proponents of these different camps
Speaker 1: who they might be extremely knowledgeable about their particular discipline,
Speaker 1: their particular area of research, and because of that knowledge,
Speaker 1: and because of the expertise, and because of the time
Speaker 1: they have spent in there, uh, they feel that that
Speaker 1: is the most promising or most legitimate way to define aging.
Speaker 1: And the and and the other person is completely off base,
Speaker 1: whereas that other person is feeling exactly the same way
Speaker 1: right well, and especially when you get into the type
Speaker 1: of science communicators, you know, not not just researchers, but
Speaker 1: science community there's like Aubrey de Gray, who um, who
Speaker 1: are personalities unto themselves. You get into an area where
Speaker 1: it's definitely easier and it might be more profitable to say, yes,
Speaker 1: this thing is definitely the answer, and that other guy
Speaker 1: is wrong. And that other guy is a very polite
Speaker 1: way of of putting it, because, like I said, when
Speaker 1: you start researching this and you start looking into even
Speaker 1: the academic papers, there's a level of animosity that is
Speaker 1: just barely disguised by civil discourse. Oh yeah, I sort
Speaker 1: of feed on it. Actually. You know. One thing that's
Speaker 1: interesting to me is that makes me wonder if that
Speaker 1: level of color in the in the disagreement is evidence
Speaker 1: that this involves the violation of a taboo like that.
Speaker 1: It's not just that people are disagreeing about how to
Speaker 1: do something, or about whether a certain avenue of research
Speaker 1: is fruitful, but about whether people are having there they're
Speaker 1: sort of base instincts offended, maybe, I think, And it's
Speaker 1: not not can we do it? But should we do it?
Speaker 1: What shall we become if we do it? I'm sure
Speaker 1: that's well. There are certainly people who question research into
Speaker 1: anti aging who fall into that particular line of thinking. Right,
Speaker 1: the ones who say that is unnatural and therefore it
Speaker 1: is not right, you should not do that. UM. So
Speaker 1: there are people who feel that way. I don't know
Speaker 1: that that's the underlying cause for a lot of like
Speaker 1: like the the the doctors and scientists who disagree with
Speaker 1: degrees approach UH. It may may fall closer to the
Speaker 1: line of UM. I think of people who have I
Speaker 1: hate using this example, but it's the one that comes
Speaker 1: to mind anti vaxers, where you have doctors who are
Speaker 1: they've seen the benefits of vaccinations, they know the risks
Speaker 1: that are involved, and they are very small compared to
Speaker 1: the massive benefit that vaccinations provide. But you have a
Speaker 1: vocal group of people who have very strong feelings about this,
Speaker 1: somewhat based on UH. At least one person's claimed that
Speaker 1: it's a scientific attack against vaccination, saying that I have
Speaker 1: proof here that these things are bad. I think that UM.
Speaker 1: The the that some of Aubrey de Gray's critics, they
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't go so far as to say he's on
Speaker 1: that level right, but that Aubrey de Gray is at
Speaker 1: least in part a kind of almost like a Carnival barker,
Speaker 1: Like getting a lot of attention and a lot of
Speaker 1: excitement around this thing, which, by the way, leads to
Speaker 1: lots of money. We were talking about investment to to
Speaker 1: fund the research that Aubrey De Gray does, and that
Speaker 1: I think leads a lot of gives a lot of
Speaker 1: people a bad taste in their mouth, and that fuels
Speaker 1: the skeptical fatigue. Yeah, and in the case of m
Speaker 1: I T S Technology Review, a twenty thousand dollars worth
Speaker 1: of bad taste in their mouth. Actually, back in two five,
Speaker 1: after Aubrey De Gray's TED talk came out, I believe,
Speaker 1: was when this happened. Yeah, this is crazy. So when
Speaker 1: we're talking about animosity, So M I T S Technology Review,
Speaker 1: they ran a piece about, uh, the the claims that
Speaker 1: Aubrey De Gray was making after this TED talk, and
Speaker 1: it prompted a ton of reader response that they said
Speaker 1: was spirited and lively and led to them devising a competition.
Speaker 1: And in that competition, M I T put up ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and Aubrey De Gray put up the other
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars twenty thousand dollar prize to any molecular
Speaker 1: biologists who could prove that Degray and the SENS Research
Speaker 1: Foundation which de Gray founded was quote so wrong that
Speaker 1: it was unworthy of learned debate in quote and Sends,
Speaker 1: by the way, stands for strategies for engineered negligible senescence.
Speaker 1: I think we mentioned that in our previous episode, but
Speaker 1: just in case you were wondering. So it was essentially saying,
Speaker 1: we will pay you twenty thou dollars if you can
Speaker 1: write up a piece that proves that the Sends argument,
Speaker 1: that their approach is uh so far into the realm
Speaker 1: of fantasy that it cannot be considered uh scientifically valid,
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't even like perpetual motion, we shouldn't even
Speaker 1: bother talking about it. So they got some judges that
Speaker 1: included biologists and computer scientists. Actually it's interesting if you
Speaker 1: look at the list of judges, uh, and they received
Speaker 1: five submissions to evaluate, but out of those five, only
Speaker 1: three actually met the terms of the challenge, so down
Speaker 1: to three. And then at that point de Gray was
Speaker 1: allowed to read each of the challenges to write a rebuttal,
Speaker 1: and then the people who wrote those pieces were able
Speaker 1: to read Degrad's rebuttal and respond to it. That entire
Speaker 1: piece would be taken into account when the judges were
Speaker 1: reading and reviewing the information, so in the end it
Speaker 1: was a stalemate. Essentially. The judges said that none of
Speaker 1: the three submissions that actually met the requirements proved that
Speaker 1: the sense approach was fundamentally flawed. But they also said
Speaker 1: that Degray failed to defend Sends properly and that his
Speaker 1: ideas were largely fanciful. So, in other words, no one
Speaker 1: came out of this looking great, although to be fair,
Speaker 1: they actually said that some of the pieces that were
Speaker 1: submitted were very well written. They just didn't succeed in
Speaker 1: convincing anyone that the sense approach was beyond doubt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so some of the judges expressed personal doubts that sends
Speaker 1: as a valid approach, but granted that without scientific evidence
Speaker 1: to prove or disprove the hypotheses that sent represents, it's
Speaker 1: impossible to say that for certain. And they used the
Speaker 1: term quote sensational a lot to describe the sens agenda,
Speaker 1: which I think it works. It's sins sation. Uh. The
Speaker 1: judges did award ten thousand dollars. This came straight from
Speaker 1: m I T. They didn't touch Degray's money, So the
Speaker 1: ten dollars the m I T put up went to
Speaker 1: one submission, which they said the judges said was particularly
Speaker 1: well written, but didn't actually prove that SINS was beyond
Speaker 1: scientific merit. That piece was written by a collection of scholars,
Speaker 1: with Dr Preston w is Step the third as the
Speaker 1: chief author. The pieces available to read for free online.
Speaker 1: I recommend reading it. It is entertaining. The group argued
Speaker 1: that the SENS approach fit the definition of pseudo science,
Speaker 1: which is, in scientific terms, a sick burn so um.
Speaker 1: In that piece, e step at al. Wrote that these
Speaker 1: objections they listed objections earlier, they actually listed along I
Speaker 1: think like whinny item long list of things to identify
Speaker 1: whether this claim was pseudo scientific or not, and the
Speaker 1: first three or what they were focusing on. Those three
Speaker 1: objections highlight the fact that human aging is not well
Speaker 1: understood and any prospective therapy or cure must be regarded
Speaker 1: as pure speculation. This is in fact the crux of
Speaker 1: this list, and any claim of a cure for human
Speaker 1: aging prior to evidence of therapeutic efficacy or prior to
Speaker 1: a scientifically supported mechanistic model of human aging must be
Speaker 1: pseudo science. Which is pretty harsh words, but in a
Speaker 1: way you can understand exactly where they're coming from there, saying,
Speaker 1: if you don't understand the cause of a problem, you
Speaker 1: can't hope to solve the problem. You can, you can
Speaker 1: address the effects of the problem, but you're not solving
Speaker 1: the problem. And Degray, they were arguing, is making a
Speaker 1: case for solving a problem. And so that's that's where
Speaker 1: we're having an issue because what he's claiming, in our view,
Speaker 1: is impossible at this stage of our understanding. Uh. They
Speaker 1: objected to de grace seven pathologies, claiming that they are
Speaker 1: at least partially arbitrary, and that Degray purposefully excluded some
Speaker 1: pathologies unscientifically. So, in other words, he was identifying these
Speaker 1: seven keys to aging. But they said, there there are
Speaker 1: more that Degray, for reasons we don't understand, chose not
Speaker 1: to include. They don't fall into one of the other
Speaker 1: categories he had identified, and he does not address why
Speaker 1: he chose not to look into these others. So therefore
Speaker 1: this isn't scientific at all. Uh. They said that sends
Speaker 1: amounts to a little more than quote, a collection of
Speaker 1: prospective therapies, some simple and mundane, for example, exercise, and
Speaker 1: some best described as fantasy and quote, yeah, so not
Speaker 1: the only time that Degray and his work would be criticized.
Speaker 1: It happened to in in two thousand nine. I read
Speaker 1: this paper as well. It's a paper titled Science Fact
Speaker 1: and the sins agenda, Now that I would argue already
Speaker 1: has some loaded language agenda. The word agenda suggests that
Speaker 1: to me anyway, to me seems to be nobody ever
Speaker 1: says agenda and a positive But the word agenda has
Speaker 1: an agenda. Yeah, there's an implication there that that there
Speaker 1: is a purposeful To me, it implies that they think
Speaker 1: they're purposefully misleading folks. People use it to describe what
Speaker 1: they think of as a nefarious political faction opposed right.
Speaker 1: It's similarly similar to objections to the term conspiracy theory,
Speaker 1: because by calling it a conspiracy theory, you're already kind
Speaker 1: of degrading it to right, Yeah, because that could be
Speaker 1: a perfectly apt description of a thing. Though, if you
Speaker 1: are if you have a theory about how parties conspired
Speaker 1: to do something, well under those circumstances, I think it's accepted,
Speaker 1: but under but but if if you're talking about conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory when it's in fact just a fringe theory, that
Speaker 1: fringe theory is the preferred term. Okay, yeah, I have
Speaker 1: a couple of they all involved costuming. Uh this two
Speaker 1: nine papers. Sorry yes. The science fact and the Sin's
Speaker 1: Agenda was published in the National Institute of Health Library
Speaker 1: of Medicine, and a group of researchers and doctors posted
Speaker 1: an objection to the anti aging camps, again focusing primarily
Speaker 1: on Degray and sins. So the general consistent consensus in
Speaker 1: the group was that Degray was oversimplifying the causes of
Speaker 1: aging and as proposed solutions had never been shown to
Speaker 1: extend the lifespan of any organism, let alone a human.
Speaker 1: De Gray, by the way, responded to this and said yep,
Speaker 1: but essentially was saying that that doesn't mean that it
Speaker 1: won't ever be shown to be efficacious. It's just not
Speaker 1: that way yet. Um. They didn't go so far as
Speaker 1: to say we never find ways to counteract aging. Rather,
Speaker 1: they argued that the Gray's approach was incredibly optimist stick
Speaker 1: perhaps in the realm of pure fantasy if you might
Speaker 1: be sensing a theme here, and that actual scientific evidence
Speaker 1: is needed to support any of the claims he was making.
Speaker 1: They did assert that it is unrealistic to believe that
Speaker 1: we will find an approach within our lifetimes to reverse
Speaker 1: the process of aging. Specifically, the paper reads, quote the
Speaker 1: idea that a research program organized around the SENS agenda
Speaker 1: will not only retard aging but also reverse it, creating
Speaker 1: young people from old ones and do so within our
Speaker 1: lifetime is so far from plausible that commands no respect
Speaker 1: at all within the informed scientific community end quote. So
Speaker 1: essentially they were arguing that m I T S should
Speaker 1: probably go to them. So, so this was two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: I wonder what these same authors would think now. I mean,
Speaker 1: part of the issue here is that they're directing, uh,
Speaker 1: their directing their critique at SINS specifically. But then so
Speaker 1: this is partially like the model Degray has approaching the
Speaker 1: aging problem as an engineering problem. And yet as we've established,
Speaker 1: there other ways of trying to reverse your counteract aging. Yeah,
Speaker 1: these were these were specifically critics of degrees approach and
Speaker 1: not necessarily of reblems of research into aging and gen
Speaker 1: But you can see it in the language there that
Speaker 1: there's some spill over, like there's some contamination in a
Speaker 1: way of one's attitude towards a guy they specifically have
Speaker 1: a problem with two. The whole project. It definitely feels
Speaker 1: like some of them are teetering between that fine line
Speaker 1: between being a skeptic and being a denier right like
Speaker 1: and and to be fair again, that was two thousand nine. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but the whole reason I brought this up was I
Speaker 1: was wondering why I wonder if these people would still
Speaker 1: say the same thing. I mean, some of the research
Speaker 1: we've talked about from recent years, and and is there
Speaker 1: skepticism about about that type of research coming from people
Speaker 1: other than Degray and and the sent Institute. Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1: I think that Degray is such a polarizing figure that
Speaker 1: it made it easy for certain people to make statements
Speaker 1: that perhaps are more wide than they had intended. Um
Speaker 1: because I know that a lot of these doctors and
Speaker 1: scientists were in the realms of researching aging in the
Speaker 1: first place. And it's not like they don't think their
Speaker 1: work doesn't have merit or won't have some sort of
Speaker 1: applicable therapy that could be used to treat at least
Speaker 1: some part of aspect of aging. But one thing these
Speaker 1: critics definitely do have, right is that pretty much all
Speaker 1: the stuff that's out on the market today, because there
Speaker 1: is such stuff that's all bonk. You know this stuff
Speaker 1: people are selling today, like, yeah, become young again with
Speaker 1: this one simple pill. Yeah. The Back in two thousand two,
Speaker 1: a group of scientists and doctors published a paper in
Speaker 1: the Journal of Gerontology titled Position Statement on Human Aging,
Speaker 1: which sounds incredibly like that's a clickable title, and their
Speaker 1: positions to e been on human Aging were against it.
Speaker 1: So really what they were saying was that there's a
Speaker 1: growing anti aging industry. And again this is back in
Speaker 1: two thousand two, and they said it isn't based off
Speaker 1: of scientific knowledge, but rather is predatory and nature It
Speaker 1: aims at that vulnerable spot for a lot of people
Speaker 1: that fear of aging and dying. And the paper went
Speaker 1: so far as to say the products being sold have
Speaker 1: no scientifically demonstrated efficacy. In some cases, they may be harmful,
Speaker 1: and those selling them often misrepresent the science upon which
Speaker 1: they are based. In the position statement that follows fifty
Speaker 1: two researchers in the field of aging have collaborated to
Speaker 1: inform the public of the distinction between the pseudo scientific
Speaker 1: anti aging industry and the genuine science of aging that
Speaker 1: has progressed rapidly in recent years. Yeah, so I mean,
Speaker 1: that seems kind of hard to argue with even today.
Speaker 1: That was two thousand two, but I'd say still my
Speaker 1: position today would be keep a skeptical open mind about
Speaker 1: what's possible in terms of anti aging research, but don't
Speaker 1: buy any products yet. Right. And it's funny because I
Speaker 1: didn't put this. I meant to put this in the notes,
Speaker 1: but and I mentioned it to both of you beforehand.
Speaker 1: About I came across the study last week that was
Speaker 1: looking into the media portrayal of aging anti aging treatments.
Speaker 1: Because just as both camps tend to yell at one
Speaker 1: another about whether the anti aging research has any validity
Speaker 1: or if the claims are overreaching, mostly that the claims
Speaker 1: are overreaching or not. Uh, that argument has spilled over
Speaker 1: to debating on how both camps are portrayed within the media.
Speaker 1: And there was a study that went through to find out,
Speaker 1: like does the media favor the anti aging camps more
Speaker 1: than the skeptics, because both both groups argued that the
Speaker 1: other was being unfairly championed and that they were being
Speaker 1: demonized in the media as like that always the way.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you ask a liberal, the media has
Speaker 1: a conservative bias. If you ask a conservative the media
Speaker 1: has a liberal bias. Yeah, I've had the same thing
Speaker 1: happen on tech stuff like just a technology like nothing,
Speaker 1: not even a judgment on the technology. And I will
Speaker 1: have half the people argue that, uh that, you know,
Speaker 1: you should have really gone after them on this other
Speaker 1: thing this. Another half are saying you're being so unfair
Speaker 1: to this. Say, it just goes to show that the
Speaker 1: study actually showed that as well. In fact, the study
Speaker 1: showed that there was a slight preference towards the anti
Speaker 1: aging industry, which isn't a terror, not really surprising. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't overwhelming. It wasn't like a remarkably huge
Speaker 1: I mean the media, that's a bias. That makes sense.
Speaker 1: The media would rather have news to report than report
Speaker 1: on something to say, nothing all that interesting here? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: well right right A. You want a reason for writing
Speaker 1: your article and be like it's it's that mighty ducks
Speaker 1: kind of thing, you know, like like at a certain
Speaker 1: point you're going like, oh, but I want to believe
Speaker 1: in that underdog, like I want them to succeed. You
Speaker 1: don't wanna you don't want to write the headline that
Speaker 1: said you're still going to get old and die or
Speaker 1: you're still going to get old probably and die definitely.
Speaker 1: That would that's not a headline you want to write.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I want to can we can we
Speaker 1: talk to Allison? Can we? I think let's do it
Speaker 1: the title where you're still going to get old probably
Speaker 1: and die definitely. Uh So let's talk about the pro
Speaker 1: anti aging side a little bit. So the SINS response
Speaker 1: to those criticisms is varied, but a frequent argument is
Speaker 1: that the critics of SINS, they say, the people are
Speaker 1: criticizing us are creating a straw man argument. I know
Speaker 1: one thing I have encountered in seeing some of the
Speaker 1: pro SINS people as they say, uh, our critics are
Speaker 1: sort of treating it as if we are making claims
Speaker 1: that we haven't made yet. You know, they might say that,
Speaker 1: you know, we're simply saying these avenues of research should
Speaker 1: be open and people should consider them legitimate, whereas our
Speaker 1: opponent dents treat us is if we say we found
Speaker 1: the cure for aging to be fair. Though Degray has
Speaker 1: been pretty adamant about these are avenues are the things
Speaker 1: that are going to lead us to anti aging? Like
Speaker 1: it's not well again it's the headline. Yeah, but but
Speaker 1: it's making a claim. That's the problem. You're saying, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's got so he's got seven engineering problems that he
Speaker 1: thinks should be addressed, right, and his argument is that
Speaker 1: once we address these, we will have defeated aging. And
Speaker 1: that's that's some of the critics, at least are saying
Speaker 1: that fundamental premises flawed and setism. Degray has often said
Speaker 1: that critics are arguing that would be difficult, if not impossible,
Speaker 1: to treat all the effects of aging because we don't
Speaker 1: fully understand him. But they reject this argument. One of
Speaker 1: the arguments tends to be at least Degray has projected
Speaker 1: this as being an argument against him. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: where he pulled it up from, but uh, one of
Speaker 1: the things I've seen him say is that a lot
Speaker 1: of people say, hey, for millions of years, animals have
Speaker 1: aged and and grown more frail over time, and eventually,
Speaker 1: if nothing else kills them, have died as a result
Speaker 1: of this. Uh, that's evolution that's happened for millions of years.
Speaker 1: It's gonna take time to counteract that. In his responses, no,
Speaker 1: I won't so because because he says like, well, look
Speaker 1: at look at how gene therapy, for example, could potentially
Speaker 1: counteract something that has been in development for millions of years.
Speaker 1: And he says that that shows that this that's really
Speaker 1: a non factor, that if somebody made that argument, they'd
Speaker 1: be wrong. Yeah, okay, that's but the question is that
Speaker 1: really the argument that's being made against him or is
Speaker 1: that just an argument he can win and therefore his
Speaker 1: counterpoint um on the on there's a site called fight Aging,
Speaker 1: which I went and read quite a few pieces on.
Speaker 1: I guess you can guess. I wouldn't say belligerent, it
Speaker 1: was definitely definitely pro on the on the degree in
Speaker 1: sense side of fight club. You know, they want you
Speaker 1: to talk about it first, it's your first time there.
Speaker 1: You have to stop aging. So a post from two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight argues that quote the causes of aging
Speaker 1: are not the pathologies of aging. Pathologies are end results
Speaker 1: end quote, which seemed really confusing to me at first,
Speaker 1: because pathology is defined as the science of the causes
Speaker 1: and effects of diseases. So saying that the cause of
Speaker 1: aging is not the pathology of aging seems like you're
Speaker 1: kind of being the causes of aging are not the
Speaker 1: causes of aging. Right. Yeah, that sounds like maybe what
Speaker 1: they meant to say is the causes of aging are
Speaker 1: not the effects of aging. Yeah, that's what I'm when
Speaker 1: when he's saying pathologies of aging, I think he's talking
Speaker 1: about the pathologies of age related illnesses and conditions as
Speaker 1: opposed to aging itself. So the post appears to argue
Speaker 1: that these pathologies and questions are those various diseases and
Speaker 1: conditions that are result of aging, and that by addressing
Speaker 1: aging itself, rather than treating the diseases, we could slow
Speaker 1: or even reverse the age process. So, in other words, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, arguing the big argument here is saying, yes,
Speaker 1: the effects of aging are complicated, right, These diseases that
Speaker 1: are a result of the aging process are hard to understand,
Speaker 1: they will be difficult to treat. I'm not suggesting you
Speaker 1: do that, instead of suggesting you go back a step
Speaker 1: further up the chain and address the underlying conditions that
Speaker 1: lead to these diseases. And therefore you never have to
Speaker 1: treat the diseases anyway, because you've stopped the dominoes before
Speaker 1: they can, you know, tilt over and cause everything to
Speaker 1: fall down. Sure, I mean I I do. I do
Speaker 1: hypothetically agree that the best way to prevent dominoes from
Speaker 1: falling is to never have dominoes in in the first place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm much more of a pizza hut guy myself. I
Speaker 1: think the real solution to aging is never be born.
Speaker 1: Thank you? All right. Well, that same piece goes on
Speaker 1: to argue that there are comparatively few types of biochemical
Speaker 1: damage that can lead to the various age related disease
Speaker 1: is Now, this is the argument that is being presented
Speaker 1: in Fight Aging, and that by addressing the root cause
Speaker 1: of the biochemical damage, the diseases could be prevented in
Speaker 1: the first place. And you don't need to have any
Speaker 1: further understanding of the diseases. Whether or not we have
Speaker 1: the true understanding of that biochemical damage is another question. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's the sticking point. Yeah, I agree that you
Speaker 1: don't You don't need to understand how a disease happens
Speaker 1: in order to prevent it. But yeah, you gotta at
Speaker 1: least have identified the thing that sets everything off. Like
Speaker 1: if if I don't know, if I if I have
Speaker 1: a big meal, here's a great example. If I have
Speaker 1: a big meal and then on two hours later, I
Speaker 1: have a massive allergic reaction. I don't necessarily know what
Speaker 1: element of that big meal was the thing that set
Speaker 1: it off, So without further experimentation and study, Uh, I
Speaker 1: could either just completely ignore everything that I ate and
Speaker 1: just never have it again. Or I could go another
Speaker 1: route and try and identify that thing so that I
Speaker 1: still enjoy all the others. And you don't need to
Speaker 1: know how an allergic reaction works in order to prevent
Speaker 1: it in the future, like, as long as you can
Speaker 1: identify that yeah, yeah, or the shrimp, and as the
Speaker 1: case may be. So in February two sixteen, there was
Speaker 1: a debate titled Lifespans are long Enough. That was the
Speaker 1: premise of the debate. So you had the pro side
Speaker 1: the argument. So that's the group that says, yes, lifespans
Speaker 1: are long enough, we don't need to extend them anymore. Uh.
Speaker 1: They had Ian Ground of the University of Newcastle and
Speaker 1: Paul route Wolp from the Emery Center for Ethics on
Speaker 1: the against side, as in, no, lifespans are not long enough. Uh.
Speaker 1: They had Aubrey de Gray and Brian Kennedy, who is
Speaker 1: the CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on aging.
Speaker 1: So before the debate, twent the audience believed lifespans are
Speaker 1: long enought, six percent disagreed and said no, they're not,
Speaker 1: and thirty two percent said I don't know. So then
Speaker 1: after the debate believed lifespans are long enough, forty nine
Speaker 1: percent said no, they totally are not an eleven percent
Speaker 1: were like, I still don't know. Um, So the online
Speaker 1: Bowl version was different. The Online Bowl was dramatically in
Speaker 1: favor of Degray's side, with eight nine percent agreeing with
Speaker 1: the against position and only eleven agreeing on the four position.
Speaker 1: So it makes sense, I mean people, I think people
Speaker 1: are way more eager to beg for more life when
Speaker 1: they're anonymous or people when somebody knows who you are,
Speaker 1: you want to have the bravado of saying like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll die whenever, but then once nobody knows who you are,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh god no. It's also a question of like,
Speaker 1: would there have been more of the Grace supporters on
Speaker 1: the internet because of a A an emotional buy in
Speaker 1: on the part of the of his position, which on
Speaker 1: A I don't know the answers, well, I mean I'm
Speaker 1: not uh super swayed by audience opinions in any case
Speaker 1: on this because obviously there's there could quite easily be
Speaker 1: some motivated reasoning going on. Actually, I would say on
Speaker 1: both sides, and I brought so the obvious side is
Speaker 1: that people want to live longer. I mean, you have
Speaker 1: some motivation to say, yes, this is possible because you
Speaker 1: want it. But then again, I brought up earlier how
Speaker 1: there might be a taboo on this subject, and I
Speaker 1: don't think that's an unfair assumption. I think there may
Speaker 1: very well be a taboo people have about the idea
Speaker 1: of monkeying too much with how long people live. Isn't
Speaker 1: it just supposed to be this way? Yeah? I think
Speaker 1: that even even if it's not something that anyone is
Speaker 1: is thinking of presently in the front of their mind
Speaker 1: while they're making these types of arguments and having these
Speaker 1: types of debates, it's probably it is probably something that's
Speaker 1: lurking in in their psyche somewhere seems unnatural. Now. One
Speaker 1: thing that I think did help Degray's argument quite a bit,
Speaker 1: and we can talk about this a bit more. Did
Speaker 1: he give them candy then a nod to my knowledge, uh,
Speaker 1: maybe gave him now and later and said, hey, if
Speaker 1: you want. If you want to be able to enjoy
Speaker 1: this now and later to the full extent, you won't
Speaker 1: have an extended lifespan, so you can enjoy some now
Speaker 1: and some later. He gave them one marshmallow and said,
Speaker 1: if you can wait five hundred years to eat this marshmallow,
Speaker 1: you'll get to I like, I like our references to
Speaker 1: various psychological studies. Know. What he said was that the
Speaker 1: research into trying to defeat aging will also lead to
Speaker 1: treatments and therapies for age related diseases, and so there
Speaker 1: could be benefits even if for some reason the Sins
Speaker 1: approach were to never actually uh bear fruit as far
Speaker 1: as defeating aging or reversing aging, or or increasing the
Speaker 1: health span that we would uh experience. He argued that
Speaker 1: they might learn more about ways to treat diseases like Alzheimer's. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think, in my non scientists opinion, that's
Speaker 1: very possibly true. Yeah. So, I mean that's and and
Speaker 1: you know you can't understate that, right, that's a very
Speaker 1: valuable aspect. Oh sure, Well, and and that's again I
Speaker 1: think we mentioned this in the last episode, but that's
Speaker 1: the thing that we talked about on the show all
Speaker 1: the time is that the the value of doing scientific
Speaker 1: research isn't always necessarily the thing that you set out
Speaker 1: to discover. It could very well be a wonderful side
Speaker 1: effect like X rays, yeah, or or finding a new
Speaker 1: treatment for for Alzheimer's disease would be phenomenal, or Parkinson's
Speaker 1: or anything along those lines where your your initial uh,
Speaker 1: your initial research might have been in a related field.
Speaker 1: It might have been something that was trying to find
Speaker 1: a specific aspect of aging and perhaps you never were
Speaker 1: able to nail that down, but you might have learned
Speaker 1: something along the way of dealing with like a neurological
Speaker 1: illness or anything along those lines. You know, I wonder
Speaker 1: if there's any reason you can think of why we
Speaker 1: shouldn't do this. Why, you know, let's say we could
Speaker 1: discover a path to healthy aging that would extend human
Speaker 1: lifespan by a long long time. It is there an
Speaker 1: argument you could make that that's not okay, that that's
Speaker 1: the thing we shouldn't allow ourselves to do wellically and morally.
Speaker 1: I think sure there's some there's like, for one, for instance,
Speaker 1: there's the argument that has been made that when you
Speaker 1: start increasing lifespans that you may also see a decrease
Speaker 1: in offspring. In other words, you might end up seeing
Speaker 1: a a an increasingly ageless population that's never changing, it's
Speaker 1: not getting any um circulation. There there that that there's
Speaker 1: a decrease in the number of children being and that
Speaker 1: it could therefore become stagnant. That to me sounds almost
Speaker 1: like you're taking this idea and and projecting it using
Speaker 1: almost like a science fiction sort of approach without necessarily
Speaker 1: having the scientific evidence to back up that claim. But
Speaker 1: it's something I've seen a lot of yeah and and
Speaker 1: um on. On the flip side of that, what if
Speaker 1: what if the population growth rate doesn't slow? What what
Speaker 1: if you have the population growing and overpopulating it's such
Speaker 1: an incredible rate. You know, we already have many problems
Speaker 1: with overpopulation and get getting resources to where they need
Speaker 1: to be to support that population. Is it would it
Speaker 1: be responsible to allow people to live longer? Or I
Speaker 1: would have access to it. Because it's only the people
Speaker 1: who make a certain amount of money then you have,
Speaker 1: uh not the one per centers become not just the
Speaker 1: people who hold most of the wealth, they're the ones
Speaker 1: who will live long after you're gone. And that's just
Speaker 1: not fair I think a lot of these things that
Speaker 1: we bring up play on the idea of unfairness. You know,
Speaker 1: there seems like that there could be situations of unfairness,
Speaker 1: but it seems in those cases that the unfairness would
Speaker 1: be to the people who don't get access to the procedure.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering if is the answer then that nobody
Speaker 1: should have it? Uh Like, is it better to make
Speaker 1: everybody be punished? And and that's sort of a that's
Speaker 1: that's sort of I mean, I I certainly can't speak philosophically,
Speaker 1: morally ethically to this, but but I would assume that
Speaker 1: there is a point of view out there that that
Speaker 1: that kind of tinkering with human life goes against the
Speaker 1: purpose of humans, like like whatever creator purpose exists for us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of people would have various religious
Speaker 1: objections and so forth. One weird unfairness that comes to
Speaker 1: my mind is like, uh, back projected historical fairness. There's
Speaker 1: nothing to do about this, But I have this thought
Speaker 1: of like, well, what if we did have the ability
Speaker 1: to live to five hundred, that would be so unfair
Speaker 1: to all the people who died before we had that. Again, right,
Speaker 1: don't anyone consider. There's actually a great Mitchell and webscite
Speaker 1: about this where where David Mitchell gets and irrationally angry
Speaker 1: that the generation after him will be the first generation
Speaker 1: to live forever and he is so angry that it's
Speaker 1: not his generation. But but yeah, then again, is this
Speaker 1: a reason we should like punish the people who exist today? Well,
Speaker 1: according to David Mitchell, it absolutely is. But again that
Speaker 1: was a comedy sketch. But I I think that that's
Speaker 1: just sort of a weird intuition. But yeah, it does
Speaker 1: seem like, man, it sucks for like the last person
Speaker 1: dying in a hospital bed of old age before this
Speaker 1: becomes available. Yeah, I mean I'm that I'm ad at
Speaker 1: the the last person to get through a light before
Speaker 1: it turns red. Like I'm going to be furious at
Speaker 1: people who get to live longer than in Atlanta. Come on,
Speaker 1: three people can go through that red light. So now,
Speaker 1: I was going to say that that I think a
Speaker 1: lot of the people who object to the anti aging
Speaker 1: you know approach, the sins approach specifically, don't object to
Speaker 1: the research or the lines of inquiry or any of that.
Speaker 1: What they object to is the presentation the fact that
Speaker 1: it is being presented in an ostentatious manner, as if
Speaker 1: the conclusion has already the conclusion has proven, we're just
Speaker 1: waiting for the results to have the formalities addressed. That
Speaker 1: I think is where a lot of people have The
Speaker 1: real objection is that that this guy claims to have
Speaker 1: the answers already. He now he's looking for the scientific
Speaker 1: backing to prove that the answers he has are all
Speaker 1: are are all valid answers, And that's not the way
Speaker 1: science is supposed to work. And I think that's the
Speaker 1: major objections some of them have said, Hey, may turn
Speaker 1: out that some of the things he's claimed are absolutely correct,
Speaker 1: but we have no way of knowing that, and he
Speaker 1: has no way of knowing that. So I could just
Speaker 1: as easily claim the color blue is what causes aging.
Speaker 1: Give me money. Yeah, So that that, I think is
Speaker 1: where the major objection is not so much that we
Speaker 1: should not look into ways to treat or halt or
Speaker 1: reverse aging and possible right right. Rather, we can't just
Speaker 1: make a claim and then hope that we can back
Speaker 1: it up. That I think is where most of the
Speaker 1: objections I've seen come from. Sure, it's I don't know,
Speaker 1: like and I and I do get it, you know,
Speaker 1: watching and if you guys out there have not ever
Speaker 1: watched Aubrey to Grace speak, I totally recommend checking it
Speaker 1: out because he's a very entertaining speaker if nothing else.
Speaker 1: And he has a beard so epic. Uh yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: he's using all the research money to just to just
Speaker 1: a steize his beard all going to beard oil. That's terrible.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, no, no, no, so um he is the
Speaker 1: resputent of gerontology. Yeah. We we have made this assertion before,
Speaker 1: we will make it again. No, no, no, no. What
Speaker 1: I was what I was trying to what I was
Speaker 1: trying to get into say, is that even even if
Speaker 1: you disagree with sens and with Aubrey de Gray's personal ideas, UM,
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's wonderful that he is
Speaker 1: encouraging this kind of discussion, um, and and that he
Speaker 1: is promoting the concept of of doing this research. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily agree with the the methodology, but it
Speaker 1: certainly has and I think one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: don't agree with the methodology is I think that because
Speaker 1: he has created such a reactionary response that it shared
Speaker 1: somewhat delays any results we might see otherwise, but at
Speaker 1: least there's a convert station happening and that is good.
Speaker 1: And whether or not we as members of the media
Speaker 1: are helping or hindering that kind of is still up
Speaker 1: for debate, I guess, depending upon what side of the
Speaker 1: argument you fall on. But it is absolutely fascinating and
Speaker 1: of course this is something that affects all of us.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, and you know we shouldn't. We shouldn't
Speaker 1: let degrees style of optimism overpower are our reasoning, but
Speaker 1: we also also shouldn't let our reasoning overpower our optimism.
Speaker 1: Iah No, I agree. I've always said that optimism to
Speaker 1: me includes acknowledging the challenges that are in the way,
Speaker 1: but not allowing those challenges to to prevent us from
Speaker 1: trying right. We need there needs to be that balance there.
Speaker 1: You need to be able to say, this is what
Speaker 1: I'm setting out to do. I know they're going to
Speaker 1: be road bumps on the way. I am willing and
Speaker 1: able to overcome those as they as I encounter them,
Speaker 1: And that to me is that's kind of the human story.
Speaker 1: In many ways, UM hasn't always been a pleasant one.
Speaker 1: But it's always it's been throughout the ages, really inspiring
Speaker 1: to see what people can do, particularly when they don't
Speaker 1: know that something is impossible, because it turns out they
Speaker 1: push back that definition of what impossible actually is. So
Speaker 1: this was kind of cool. It was interesting, and again
Speaker 1: a more philosophical discussion than what we sometimes will talk
Speaker 1: about here on the show. If you guys have suggestions
Speaker 1: for future episodes of Forward Thinking, let us know, or
Speaker 1: if you have thoughts about this whole topic, I want
Speaker 1: to hear what you have to say. Send us an email.
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